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> Now companies like DJI can compete and beat us DJI hires high quality Chinese engineers. Their software is better than what American consumer drone companie

> Now companies like DJI can compete and beat us DJI hires high quality Chinese engineers. Their software is better than what American consumer drone companies manage to push out, and they can push the latest tech to market insanely quick, as GoPro learned the hard way when they found out DJI was a half generation ahead of them on drone tech. DJI has great customer service, an amazing insurance plan that provides piece of mind, and bullet proof build quality. They do have a major advantage of being in China, so they can work with suppliers much more directly. It doesn't feel like they are using the grey technology market though. A lot of the lower priced drones are obviously put together from Shenzen part bins, but DJI just feels good all around. That said, their Android mobile app is a bit janky at times. Then again, lots of stuff on Android is a bit janky...

plantain 9y ago
This is patently untrue - DJI has some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced, especially for a 1000$ device. I spent two months calling every other day trying to resolve a hardware issue and ended up issuing a chargeback before getting any attention. Go read the DJI hardware/software support forums. Never. Again.
- com2kid 9y ago
  Fair enough, I've seen mixed reports. I have the care program, and everything I've ever seen about that has consisted of people saying they got their drone replaced quickly and without fuss.
- xemoka 9y ago
  They're great for a toy or a hobbyist, but companies or anyone who relies on the drone tech should look elsewhere. I can relate to awful customer support and even strange software problems that are refused to exist by DJI.
vuln 9y ago
Do you remember when the DoD banned use of any DJI drone due to it phoning home everything to China?
- com2kid 9y ago
  That should've been obvious. To be fair, from what I understand the no fly zone restrictions thing actually does require geolocation lookup and I think those no fly zones can change, so pinging a server and checking in makes sense. From just a pure telemetry perspective, knowing where people are flying the drones at is useful for product development and marketing. (In response, DJI did release a privacy mode that doesn't need internet.) A sizable % of websites visited want geo-location data, which, at times, gets sold on the open market! Then there are background phone apps that grab location data. Even when rate limited, once every half an hour is plenty enough to figure out where Military Secret is at. Infosec, it is a thing for a reason.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > To be fair, from what I understand the no fly zone restrictions thing actually does require geolocation lookup and I think those no fly zones can change, so pinging a server and checking in makes sense. Not exactly. Issue a map file with the no-fly zones as shapes (as easy as possible to save on space) and embed it with a creation timestamp. Force an update every 30 days - have the app download the file and upload it to the drone. Manipulating the drone time won't work as it gets its time directly from GPS. Also these patch files should not clock in too much - the entirety of Europe's streets can be squeezed into ~3 GB (download size of full Navigon EU map set)... I'd assume a 512MB flash chip would be sufficient to store all the world's no fly zones.
    - slededit 9y ago
      No Fly zones are updated much more often than that, and furthermore nobody would be surprised with a US companies product phoning home.
majormajor 9y ago
That's exactly the parent's contention. Where did all the infrastructure, money, and knowledge that led to a world-class country emerging there come from? Bootstrapping a tech economy gets a lot easier when people hand you the keys to the kingdom in exchange for short-term profits, without even requiring equal access to your domestic market in return.

plantain 9y ago

This is patently untrue - DJI has some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced, especially for a 1000$ device. I spent two months calling every other day trying to resolve a hardware issue and ended up issuing a chargeback before getting any attention. Go read the DJI hardware/software support forums. Never. Again.

com2kid 9y ago
Fair enough, I've seen mixed reports. I have the care program, and everything I've ever seen about that has consisted of people saying they got their drone replaced quickly and without fuss.
xemoka 9y ago
They're great for a toy or a hobbyist, but companies or anyone who relies on the drone tech should look elsewhere. I can relate to awful customer support and even strange software problems that are refused to exist by DJI.

vuln 9y ago

Do you remember when the DoD banned use of any DJI drone due to it phoning home everything to China?

com2kid 9y ago
That should've been obvious. To be fair, from what I understand the no fly zone restrictions thing actually does require geolocation lookup and I think those no fly zones can change, so pinging a server and checking in makes sense. From just a pure telemetry perspective, knowing where people are flying the drones at is useful for product development and marketing. (In response, DJI did release a privacy mode that doesn't need internet.) A sizable % of websites visited want geo-location data, which, at times, gets sold on the open market! Then there are background phone apps that grab location data. Even when rate limited, once every half an hour is plenty enough to figure out where Military Secret is at. Infosec, it is a thing for a reason.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > To be fair, from what I understand the no fly zone restrictions thing actually does require geolocation lookup and I think those no fly zones can change, so pinging a server and checking in makes sense. Not exactly. Issue a map file with the no-fly zones as shapes (as easy as possible to save on space) and embed it with a creation timestamp. Force an update every 30 days - have the app download the file and upload it to the drone. Manipulating the drone time won't work as it gets its time directly from GPS. Also these patch files should not clock in too much - the entirety of Europe's streets can be squeezed into ~3 GB (download size of full Navigon EU map set)... I'd assume a 512MB flash chip would be sufficient to store all the world's no fly zones.
  - slededit 9y ago
    No Fly zones are updated much more often than that, and furthermore nobody would be surprised with a US companies product phoning home.

majormajor 9y ago

That's exactly the parent's contention. Where did all the infrastructure, money, and knowledge that led to a world-class country emerging there come from? Bootstrapping a tech economy gets a lot easier when people hand you the keys to the kingdom in exchange for short-term profits, without even requiring equal access to your domestic market in return.